Page 26 of The Remarkable Myth of a Nameless Lady
Chapter 18
They were not friends. Or even allies. But as Jacob moved among his guests, his mind was not on the revelry of those around him who were deeply involved in a game of Charades, but on the girl who moved among his guests seeing to their every need.
Alicia. Her name is Alicia.
Perhaps it was because she was a puzzle to him. How many times had he seen evidence of her tender heart? Or her bravery in the face of danger? That she had protected him from her father was not lost on him, though why she had reason to do so was beyond him. Her father had been trespassing upon his land. He could have and would have handled the situation without her.
She saw me as vulnerable. As needing protecting.
The thought chafed at him. He had not acted as a man of title and standing ought. He had given way to the basest of instincts, hiding in strong drink when he should have faced up to that which had left him…challenged.
On the whole, Jacob was disgruntled with himself. He had sent a man into the village to look for conspiracies, and then enlisted a serving maid to do the same in his home. He was thinking too much in the way that he had while aboard ship. His last three missions had involved working…not as openly as he had pretended to his peers. Few here knew the true nature of his work. That in fact, the last ship he had sailed had been a privateer.
The crown required that I be a spy. Now I see the devil in every shadow.
He looked around the room now, trying to see it through the haze of the innocence that he had once had. His mother held court in the center of the room, delighted with the game, and in the amiable company of the officer’s wives. She had been nothing but congenial toward his friends, even though there were few within the room of high title. A Baronet here, a Knight there. In fact, she seemed quite taken with several of the ladies.
Of course, they were proper English ladies, he noted with a trace of cynicism. Had any of them been unmarried, he had no doubt they would have been paraded before him with equal intensity. It would be interesting to see what happened when her own guests arrived in a few days.
Interestingly enough, Owen was likewise taking part in the game. He leaned in toward William, an officer with whom Jacob had served several times. William was an affable sort, and laughed now at something Owen said. Jacob froze when he realized that their eyes had been upon him as they had done so.
He forced himself to look away. To breathe normally. Was his mind overwrought? Had he become no better than other men who had served overlong and could not keep the war on the other side of their own doorways when they returned home? He had always pitied those souls, and thought it sad that they could not let go the battlefield trauma even when in the safest of environs.
There is no war here,he reminded himself.None. You see things that are not there.
He found himself wanting to reach for a drink again. It would not be wrong, to put an end to the game. The men could retire with him to his study, where they could spend the rest of the night comfortably over fine brandy and reminiscences about their command and the war they had so recently left behind them. Maybe to talk about it would lay those ghosts to rest.
The group erupted in laughter as the clue was unraveled and an accurate guess made. The next group took up positions, clumsily acting out Romeo and Juliet to the laughter of the rest of the group.
Why am I so uneasy?His eyes met Alicia’s from across the room. The girl’s hand was reaching to adjust the drape that covered the window, pulling it so that it lay more fully over the glass. His mother hated a chill room. There was nothing to be suspicious of, yet he could not shake the feeling of strangers hiding behind the curtain, of something terrible about to happen.
For a moment he could not breathe.
In that instant, Alicia was there, her hand brushing his as she bent to adjust the cushions on the couch behind him. “There is nothing amiss,” she said softly, her breath tickling his ear. In the next instant she was gone, hurrying to the side of one of the ladies who asked for a piece for a costume for the next charade.
He watched as Alicia went to a chest in the corner of the room that had been brought down to aid in the game. She rummaged through old clothing and came up with an ornate lady’s fan which the woman accepted gratefully before stepping up with her partner to perform the next charade.
How had she known? The phrase stuck in his head as he watched her carefully as the game progressed. How had she known the very moment he was in distress? How had she so easily come to his aid with exactly the right thing to say to help him?
Was she as aware of him, as he was of her? It was an unsettling thought. He, who had never noticed a lady except in passing, who danced at balls only as his duty bade him, had found in her a fascination for which he had no explanation. This thoroughly unsuitable girl had somehow become his obsession to the point where he saw no one else in the room, save her.
And that was a dangerous thing.
He cast his eyes over to Owen, who had taken his place in the charade that involved the woman with the fan and her husband, who appeared to be trying to row a boat down the center of the sitting room. Owen, in every respect, seemed as though he were enjoying himself thoroughly, throwing himself into the game as though he had not a care in the world. Had they quite nearly come to blows only this afternoon?
I am allowing myself to be distracted.
He tried to put his focus on the charade, speaking to those around him as they spoke to him, though later he would have no memory of their conversations. At the same time, he could have told in detail every instance in which those amber eyes had met his from across the room.
Eventually, the game ended. The group started to drift away to their rooms. His mother retired for the night. At some point Owen left. Alicia stayed, putting the room to rights as the last of the guests said their good nights.
He had no clear memory of any of it, though he knew for a fact he was quite sober.
“Did you have any other tasks for me, Your Grace?”
Alicia’s soft question broke him from his reverie. Did he? For a moment he wondered what would happen if he bid her to stay and talk to him. He wanted to know everything about her. What had she been like as a child? Which flower did she enjoy most? Did she enjoy poetry? Where was Ballyroyal?
In the end, though, none of his questions were asked. They were allies, and uneasy ones at that. He had done her a favor, and now she owed him one. She had kept him from her father, but they had made a bargain. Surely, that single act did not negate such things.
